urban agriculture
sastyk | April 16, 2012"Context is everything. Breastfeeding is almost universally beneficial in infants, but in an elderly cardiac patient, it can be fatal." - Spider Robinson
Quite a number of readers suggested I respond to James McWilliams' piece in the New York Times "The Myth of Sustainable Meat." McWilliams has garnered quite a bit of attention by critiquing the idea of local food, and in some cases, some of his analyses, as far as they go, are right. For example, McWilliams is quite right that if everyone in America eats as much beef as they always have, but converts to grassfed beef his figures are…
sastyk | February 16, 2012The Report "The Potential for Urban Agriculture in New York City" reveals that there's a lot more open land even in one of the most densely packed places in the US than most people think. This simply backs up what we know from other cities around the world which do much more urban farming than New York City - that while no major city will ever feed itself, there's enormous potential to raise food in urban areas.
"We have identiï¬ed almost 5,000 acres of vacant land likely to be suitable for farming in the ï¬ ve boroughs, the equivalent of six times the area of Central Park. In addition to…
sastyk | December 6, 2010Liz Borkowski of The Pump Handle and I are doing a series this week on the future of urbanization. Given that just about half the world's population now lives in cities, and that almost all projected demographic growth (we will come back to whether the UN's projections on this subject are realistic in a post later this week) will occur in cities, the realities - and future - of urban life are important discussions.
Like Liz, I love cities. That may seem strange to people who know that I live out in a rural area, since many rural-dwellers don't enjoy the bustle and noise of urban life, but…
sastyk | September 6, 2010I've got to leave you with something fun to read. I'll be in Virginia for several days - if you are anywhere near Monticello's Heritage Harvest Festival this Saturday you should come by - it is going to be fabulous.. I'm going to be talking about how Jefferson's idea of "A Nation of Farmers" can be lived today, and I'm giving a workshop on low-energy food preservation, complete with tastings. C'mon by and say hello! I'll be the one following Patti Moreno around admiringly ;-).
The family and I are making this an extended holiday (Rosh Hashana) trip with visits to family and friends on the…
sastyk | August 11, 2010I'm pleased to see Grist exploring Urban Agriculture in the US in their "Feeding the City Series". America needs a focus on urban ag particularly because we have so deeply abandoned the ordinary and routine participations that city dwellers have always made to their foodshed. If you look at either our past or the present in most of the Global South and in many Global North Nations as well, we see that there's nothing very unusual in the urban dweller participating in food production. Indeed, most nations on the Global South produce at least 20% of their meat and produce within city limits…